One Part Woman (19 page)

Kali woke up at exactly the same time he was used to for feeding the cows every night, but he could not rise because of an overpowering dizziness. He lay down for a little longer, tossing his head from side to side. The thatched mat he was lying on made crunching sounds under his head. When he sat up with some difficulty, he could see everything very clearly in the moonlight. The realization about where he was and in what circumstances dawned on him with a sharp pain. Suddenly, a roaring wind entered the coconut grove and pushed the fronds around. They made a great noise and it seemed that they were beating their chests. For a moment, Kali experienced great fear.

He was used to the sound of palm fronds rustling in the wind. They’d look like they were clutching their hands to their chests. But this was the first time he was witnessing how the coconut fronds spread their arms out and wailed in panic. Slowly, the wind died down. Outside the hut, Muthu and Mandayan were lying on mats that were facing different directions. All that great wind did nothing to disturb their
sleep. When Kali got drunk and passed out, Muthu had been quite stable, which was unusual. Normally, it was Muthu who gulped down his alcohol like water and went flat very soon. How did it all change that night?

Perhaps Kali could not control the excitement at seeing coconut toddy and arrack. But he had been happy. He had not planned to spend the night here, but it all ended up working out that way. Maybe Muthu was used to coming here, getting drunk and lying around. That was why he did not say anything. Kali looked at the sky. He could not find the moon, but its light fell continuously through the gaps in the grove. He got up and washed his face with the water in the pot. His breath stank and his saliva tasted foul. So he spat it out and rinsed his mouth. He removed his dhoti, which was coming undone anyway, and wiped his face with it. Then he tightened his loincloth and wore the dhoti over it. His towel was caught under Muthu’s sleeping body. He tried to pull it free, but he had to move Muthu a little to get it out. Then he sat on the mat.

He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t fall asleep again. He never could sleep once he woke up at the time when the cattle needed to be fed. He always just stayed awake gazing around. If there was moonlight, he would carry a pot and go to the well. The barnyard needed twenty pots of water every day. What did it matter when he got that work done?

Though he knew he could not fall asleep again, he lay down and stretched his legs. Again, a mighty wind swept into the grove. Kali thought that it was only here that he was
actually able to see the wind. If the wind was so strong in Vaigasi, one could imagine how forceful it would have been in Aadi. No one would stay in the grove with such a wind blowing around and the trees screaming constantly. Perhaps, if one was used to it, one could stay. After all, Mandayan could not vacate the hut and run elsewhere just for the month of Aadi.

Mandayan was still full of affection for Kali. He kept saying ‘My Gounder’. He even said yes when Kali asked for the child. He wondered what gift Mandayan had that whenever he slept with his wife, he had a child. The gods seemed to keep giving to someone who kept saying ‘Enough!’ while the one who desperately wanted it was simply told to fuck off. Even if Mandayan agreed to give the child, Katthayi wouldn’t agree. However dire the circumstances might be, no mother would gladly give away her child. Like she said, would it work out to raise a Mooppan child in a Gounder home?

He remembered that even Ponna had once said that if it came to adopting a child, she would prefer one from the same Gounder caste. ‘But not from our relatives. They will talk as if they have given us a portion of their wealth, and we cannot raise the child with them watching. Even if the child had a minor cold and fever, they’d say we did not take good care of it. If you can find a child from some unknown place, I will consider raising it.’

Kali too was not that keen on adopting a child. Would that stop people from talking? They’d only say, ‘He calls himself
the father to someone else’s child.’ Would this make them invite Kali to weddings and funerals and give him pride of place at special gatherings? He would still be the impotent one. Ponna would still be the barren woman.

On a moonlit night like this one, when they were in the barnyard and Ponna lay with him on the cot, she had said, ‘We don’t need to raise someone else’s child, maama. We won’t be able to be as loving to it as we could be to our own child. If the child does something stupid, we would think, “Had he been our own child would he have done this?” And he might also think, “They wouldn’t talk to me like this if I were their own child.” We don’t need all that. If we manage to conceive one of our own, well and good. If not, we will just be the way we are.’

Another time, however, she spoke differently. Since it had rained well, they had planted cotton. The plants had grown nice and robust. The old woman who was supposed to be grazing an entire herd of goats in a nearby field dozed off, letting her goats wander into Kali’s cotton field. When Ponna ran from the barnyard, they were busy munching away at the lush cotton plants. And by the time she chased them all out, a sizeable portion of the plants had been reduced to leafless stalks.

‘Who knows which man she went with, abandoning her goats? Let her come. I will scoop the life out of her!’ Ponna kept yelling.

Finally, the old woman arrived, looking somewhat sheepish. Seeing her, Ponna shouted in rage.

‘I just dozed off in the heat,’ the woman said nonchalantly. ‘Why are you making a big deal out of it?’

Ponna’s anger peaked. ‘I am making a big deal out of it? Come and take a look. They have damaged one square measure of the crop. How dare you say I am making a big deal out it!’

To shut her up, the woman had just one thing in her arsenal, and she used it: ‘Why do you worry so much about an heirless property?’

Ponna was shocked. But she collected herself and responded, ‘So what? Have you come as the child to eat off my property?’

She was quite hurt by what the old woman had said. Outraged, she walked back to the barnyard and said to Kali, ‘I don’t know what you will do and how. I want a child right away.’ This was not a doll he could get immediately from the shop, was it? He tried to soothe her, but to no avail.

‘Go somewhere and get me a child!’ Ponna raged. ‘I don’t care even if it is from an untouchable woman. I don’t care if you have to buy one for money. I don’t want anyone to be able to say that this property of ours has no inheritor. Go now!’ And Ponna physically pushed Kali out of the barnyard.

She was very angry. But where would he go? How would he get a child? He stood there for a little while and then peeped inside. She was lying on the thrash floor. It took him great effort to console her that day. The topic of adopting a child usually flared up like this now and then and
got put out on its own. To reclaim her from the effect of these conversations, he had to go home at night from the barnyard for a few nights. His intense embraces accomplished what his gentle words could not. If she slowly loosened her body and showed some involvement, it meant she had emerged from her despair.

To this day, Kali found something very inviting in Ponna’s speech and demeanour. He felt that it would’ve been nice if he had stayed with her and not come along with Muthu. Only Ponna’s mother would be with her, and if he knocked on the door and asked for some water, she’d understand his intention. It was not too late even now; he could still go back. It would be a long time before dawn. Even if he walked really slowly, he could get there before the blackbirds started chirping. Thoughts of Ponna excited him. Even the great wind blowing in the grove failed to quench his body’s thirst. He sat up. Muthu was fast asleep. Let him come in the morning after drinking some more toddy, he thought. At home, they’d serve chicken in the morning. Kali could always come back here, bringing some for Muthu. He decided to tell Mandayan and leave.

Bottles of arrack stood by Mandayan’s sleeping head. One was half full and the other was untouched. Kali took the latter; it might come of use. The half-full bottle also attracted him. He drank a little from it and it hit his empty stomach with a
sharp sting. He looked around and saw coconuts lying next to the hut. He broke them open with the sickle that was lying at the hut’s entrance. They were good, fleshy coconuts. He ate the pulp of one, took another with him, and emerged out of the grove.

The moon had slid slightly down the sky to the west. He did not even think about the long distance he had to walk. Lying on the cot under the portia tree, Ponna was beckoning him with outstretched arms. The only part of the walk that was difficult was when he had to get down to the stream and climb up on to the other side, where it was dark since the moonlight came filtered through the dense bushes. When the wind started again, he could hear the wailing of coconut fronds from behind. Once he climbed up, he saw elevated fields stretching to a great distance. There was also the comforting presence of palm trees here and there. Memories of days when he had walked along the fields after watching street plays scrolled across his mind.

A big crowd of them would walk and run through the fields, scaring even the birds sleeping on the trees. The next day, people living in the shacks along the fields would inquire about the previous night’s noises. All of these ended when he got married. Uncle Nallupayyan used to say, ‘If one can freely get the pleasure of a woman without getting married, who would want to get married?’

He was right in a way. Was it only pleasure that came with marriage? It gave one an heir to complete one’s final rites and to inherit one’s wealth. Can one abandon a corpse
because one didn’t know where the fellow was from? If there was no one to do the final rites, one had to run around and find someone who could do it. You would have to fall at his feet and beg him. There are even stories where somebody had to write off his wealth to someone else just so he would have someone to complete his death rites. There was nothing more ignominious than having to take care of the property of an heirless man. Imagine the physical fights that would break out over Uncle Nallupayyan’s property when he died.

A while back, when he had come to Kali’s barnyard, Uncle Nallupayyan had said, ‘I will write my property in your name. There is no one more important to me.’

Kali said, ‘Ah! You are such a tease! Here I am, wondering what to do with my wealth, and you are offering me yours!’

‘You will give birth to one,’ said Uncle. ‘And even if you don’t, it’s not a problem. Enjoy it all as long as you can, and when you think your days are over, write it off to someone or the other. Are we going to pack all this land into a sack and carry it with us when we go?’

Once, Uncle Nallupayyan came with a large dish that was half-filled with chicken meat. The meat had been cooked in its juices and fried well. He also had a bottle of arrack with him. That was a time when Kali had a lot of work in the fields. He had worked for four days and had put out all the raagi to dry. The work of clearing the field of raagi stems was going on. While he allowed other people to pick the grains, he wouldn’t let anyone else cut the stem. If he started very early in the morning when the mist still lingered, he could
finish working on over half an acre before the sun hit his forehead. Once the grains were picked, what did it matter if the field stood for a week with just the stems? But Kali wouldn’t have it. He would even cut them at night, if there was moonlight. Ponna didn’t approve of this. There were always rodents in a raagi field, and snakes came to catch the rodents. Why risk anything at night?

Kali had been very happy to see that Uncle Nallupayyan had come bringing that feast. He had come at the right time, because Kali was very tired after all the work. He drank the arrack and took bites of the meat. It was a good chicken dish that had been made by adding just the right amount of green chilli.

‘Uncle, looks like you have learned to make excellent chicken gravy and fry it!’ said Kali.

‘Oh, I can’t do such things,’ said Uncle. ‘I can’t sit still in one place even for a little while. Then where am I going to have the patience to cook and fry? My brothers’ wives bring me these things.’ And he laughed, adding, ‘You keep saying we need an heir to what wealth we save, don’t you? But what’s the use of having a child? Even those parents who have four or five children have been left to take care of themselves. They all die alone. But I won’t die that way. See, when you have children, it is the unspoken understanding that they are going to inherit whatever you leave behind. But in my case, no one knows what I will do with my stuff, where it will go. So everyone trips over each other wanting to take care of me. The other day, I said, just for the sake of
it, that since I didn’t know who was going to take care of me, I was planning to write my property off to the Sengottayan and Pavatha temples and then go to die in some monastery somewhere. Since then, I am sent a big portion of whatever is cooked in my brothers’ homes! Today, they made meat in both houses, and the farm boy and I could not finish eating it all. So I brought it here thinking you might like it.’

Apparently, Uncle Nallupayyan’s sisters-in-law were vying with one another to take care of him. They were pampering him: ‘Is the meat enough, maama?’ or ‘Shall I bring you more gravy?’

‘Everything comes to where I am sitting,’ Uncle continued. ‘I don’t have to move anywhere. Do people who have children get treated this way? Don’t worry. In the future, you will get all this attention too.’ Saying this, he cheered Kali up.

Whenever he was talking to Uncle Nallupayyan, Kali forgot the pain of being childless and found an excitement about life. He even felt convinced it was good not to have children. But very soon some other small matter would come to the fore, tease him, rekindle his yearning for a child and laugh at his plight. Kali felt that however much Uncle Nallupayyan rationalized it, his plight was not great either. Uncle might have met several women in the market. He might have enjoyed the pleasures of coitus several times. All this was fine if it was just once in a while. But wasn’t it sad if the dog had to dip its tongue in the cattle’s water pot every time it felt hungry?

For instance, could Uncle Nallupayyan have ever experienced the kind of late-night urge that Kali was experiencing now, the one propelled by thoughts of Ponna’s body? How many kinds of urges had he felt since morning! Could Uncle ever feel the certainty that he could go home and quench his yearning? It was Ponna who made Kali aware of the secret nuances of the body. Just a slight movement of her eyes made his body toss and struggle. Even without a touch, she could make his body hers. If she touched him, his body became the two-sided drum, the kind that was played during theatrical performances. When she touched him with just a finger, his body-drum reverberated with a certain sound. If she held him with a hand, it made another distinct sound. And when she held him with both her hands, his body completely lost its control. When her touches progressed, his body moved with the increasing intensity of a body responding to a drum’s rise to a crescendo.

His mother might have given birth to him and raised him, but her control over him was limited. Nothing compared to the power his wife wielded over him. It was for Ponna that he left behind his circle of friends and relatives and confined himself to the barnyard. She said, ‘I will go if you want me to.’ That didn’t mean, ‘I will go.’ It meant, ‘I will do anything for you.’ Giving up everything was the only price he had to pay to have her rest in the palm of his hand, to nestle in the hold of his fist. Thinking of her, his body acquired speed. Not minding the mild dizziness, he walked on.

Pathways that meandered through fields with no
farmsteads led the way for him. Even from a distance, he could see his portia tree shaped like an umbrella of shadows. The wind had died. The tree looked like darkness itself. Would she open the door if he just gently tapped on it like he did at home? Or would she have gone to sleep after expecting him all night? On nights when he failed her expectation to go to her, she stayed awake. In the morning, she would burn him with her anger. The frenzy of her agitated body was too much for him to bear.

The cot under the portia tree lay bare. He walked towards the door. A large iron lock hung on the latch. For a minute, he thought she had just hung the lock outside and latched the door from the inside. So he tried pushing the latch. It was chain-locked on the outside. All his intoxication wore off. He tried pushing the lock around. Was she teasing him? But why play with him at this time of the night and that too at his father-in-law’s place? He leaned against the door and looked across the front yard. The bullocks were not there. Nor was the cart.

His lips murmured, ‘She has cheated you, she has cheated you.

He banged his head against the door. His topknot came undone and rolled down to his nape.

‘You whore!’ he shouted. ‘Have you really gone? Have you gone despite my saying no?’ Only the dog echoed his shout in a single bark. The hens that had climbed the portia tree rustled their feathers and marked their presence. ‘All of you have gotten together and cheated me,’ he cried.

His sobbing stopped gradually.

Suddenly, he got up like a man possessed. He opened the full bottle of arrack in his hand and drank it down in one gulp. He didn’t stop for air even once. Holding the bottle in his hand, he started walking. His hair, now loosened completely, lashed like a whip across his back. He wobbled along slowly all the way back to his home.

When he reached his barnyard at dawn, his dog came running to him and showed him its affection by curling its body and getting between his feet. But he kicked it off. It screamed in pain and ran away. Under the portia tree, the cattle were munching on fodder. He sat on the rock under the tree. He drank some more of the arrack. When he yelled, ‘You whore! You have cheated me!’ he was breathless. ‘You will not be happy. You have cheated me, you whore …’

He slid down to the ground. The rope running from the corn stacks pressed against his back. He looked above. The branches of the portia tree had spread themselves across the sky.